The Coconut Palm

Babes in the tropics, my husband Jonathan and I bought our property in the Mexican village of San Pancho largely because it had four magnificent coconut palms. Over time, falling coconuts have led us to axe three, replace two smashed roofs, repair broken paving and haul away crushed flower pots. It is not pretty to contemplate the meeting of a coconut descending at terminal velocity and one of our heads, thus, the yearly ritual of bringing in cocoteros to defang the last palm standing.

Cocoteros—guys who climb the trees and clean out the cocos—are not, as a rule, steady citizens. You have to be something of a cowboy to shimmy up that 30 foot trunk with your machete and crawl around the spiky canopy with spiders and biting ants, hacking loose and lowering clusters which could weigh a hundred pounds. Cocoteros work in pairs. The one who remains on the ground, likely the smarter one, receives the bunches and carts them to the street. When the well-paid job is done and the dead fronds, called palapas, and detritus cleaned up, the cocos can be sold as bonus.

Last year we waited too long to have the tree cleaned and the coconuts were falling, so when Diego appeared at the door and offered to do the job, we eagerly accepted his bid. We had only about half the fee on hand so my husband drove off to the nearest ATM.

Soon, Diego returned with Ramon whom we recognized as one of the surfers at the beach. Shirtless and tanned, black boxers fashionably visible above his baggy pants, he finished the edgy theme with wrap-around shades and shoulder-length hair. Diego was older, calm, with deep, smiling eyes. He was the one with the social graces to interact with me, admiring the house, asking for drinking water and the garden rake whose name translates “spider broom.”

Our property is walled for privacy. Inside are separate, largely open rooms—living, dining, kitchen, bedrooms, baths and studio. In the center is the garden with its coconut palm. Where I sat reading in the living room, the tree was between me and a new, still doorless, bathroom.

Ramon mounted the tree. Soon fronds were crashing to the patio and bunches of cocos gliding down on yellow nylon rope. Thirty minutes later when the tree was coco-free, Ramon climbed down and joined Diego in cleaning up around it. With their machetes they hacked the twelve-foot-long palapas into manageable lengths and piled them with immature coconut clusters and other tree-trash in a large mound in the driveway. They accepted half the fee with agreement to return later for the rest and hauled off the coconuts.

It was a hot day and as soon as they left I jumped in the shower. That time of year—May—two showers a day seem just about right. But when I reached for my razor to shave my legs, it was gone. I knew that it had been on top of the tiled shower partition and I knew immediately what had happened to it.

When Jonathan got back with the money, I told him that I thought the cocoteros had made off with my razor. He is always ready to see the best in people and he looked for a reason not to believe it. He tried the theory that they wouldn’t even want it since the replacement cartridges for the fancy multiple-blade razor are so expensive here in Mexico. Nevertheless, and with all due reluctance to blame unjustly, I stuck to my accusation. The cocoteros were coming back for the money, and I wanted Jonathan, with his superior Spanish, to Say Something. He was between a wife and a hard place, but he’s good at problems like this.

“The señora is missing her razor and wonders if it might have fallen on the floor and been swept up with the trash from the coconut palm,” Jonathan told Diego and Ramon when they returned. Ramon looked at the sky. Diego looked at the ground. Yes, Diego said, they would be glad to go through the heap. First he had to pay a bill at the tienda but they’d be right back to look. When they returned there was a showy rummage through the pile, and ¡Que milagro! A miracle! There it was. It had been swept up with the trash. Loud, nearly giddy, laughter all around at the perfection of the resolution. Our small-town relationships were salvaged for another day.

The Curious Crab Story

The scuttle sound startled me. I set down my coffee cup, surveyed the early morning landscape. Nearly four a.m., the kitchen still dark, peaceful. My husband asleep, Tango the cat curled in nocturnal nonchalance.

The scuttle grew insistent. Click-click on ceramic tile caught Tango’s attention. She jumped from her chair, took a tentative step toward a large floor fan parked in one corner of the kitchen. Whiskers stiff, ears flapped, Tango prepared for battle. One paw shot forward, curled around the base of the fan, poked air. She was on to something. I grabbed a broom, made feeble stabs on the other side of the fan.

Chaos ensued: the thing scurried from its hiding place, Tango darted after it. I jumped on a chair, handfuls of bathrobe clutched around my knees. The thing paused long enough for me to assess it: six-inch gray rounded-oblong with claw-like appendages jutting from each side of its body. I stared in disbelief. The claws looked to be crab. Crab? Here? Five blocks from the beach? The thing reared up, stared me down with eyes tiny and black as old-fashioned jet beads, waved claws then scooted sideways under a counter.

My shrieks rousted my husband from slumber. With a minimum of grumble he trapped and transported the thing out the door to the backyard, set it underneath a banana tree.

Imagination percolating, I began to embroider my morning adventure: a crab crawled from the sea, scampered along cobblestone streets, crisscrossed yards and porches to squeeze through the screen door of my kitchen. I couldn’t wait to share the story.

Ines, who owns a popular restaurant on San Pancho’s main street, Tercer Mundo, was first to hear my news.

"You won’t believe what happened," I said. She smiled, tilted her head in encouragement.
"A crab came into my kitchen! It must have walked up from the beach...or another beach...or..."

"It is common," said Ines, trying to suppress a laugh. "It is a sign the rains are coming." She told me late spring thousands of the soft-shelled land crabs navigate down the mountains east of San Pancho. By mid-summer the roads are thick with them. With charming accent, she added, "They go crunch-crunch under the tires."

Mildly deflated I tucked away my anecdote before I told others. But in the back of my mind resides yet a tall tale about a lonely land crab that makes an incredible journey. Perhaps I should write about it.

The Sounds of San Pancho

I miss the roosters,” my sister emailed me the morning after she returned from her trip to San Pancho. “It’s too quiet here in Northbrook.”

I laughed when I read her message. She had surprised me throughout her stay. In anticipation of her first visit here I was certain that she’d be packing her bags after one night of the local commotion. My brother-in-law would be okay; I reasoned he could just take out his hearing aids, but my sister?

“It’s charmingly noisy here” is my caveat before they and all visitors arrive.

“What do you mean?” they ask.

I explain, stressing the picturesque. “Life in San Pancho is a symphony of sound.” The neighborhood roosters, goats and horses express themselves all day and through the night. Children’s voices mingle with music from classic Mexican favorites, to rock and rap. The raucous bandas, from which there is no escape, play salsa and cumbia with the bass so loud walls throughout the neighborhood reverberate with its rhythm, until
4:00 am. We have barking dogs, howling cats, and blaring stereos from cars and trucks without mufflers. With confidence, I tell everyone, “After a day or two, you won’t notice it. It will just be background noise.” And for us, it’s true. I hope they will be as surprised and charmed as we are.

Daily, a small pick up truck brings warm tortillas and winds it way through the streets, announcing itself with several loud honks of its horn. More pickups pass, throughout the day, their scratchy recordings and megaphone-distorted voices describing to the “ama de casa, the lady of the house,” their offerings of vegetable and fruits, fresh fish and shrimp.

“Traemos camarones, a cien pesos. We bring shrimp, for 100 pesos,” goes the call of the shrimp supplier.

You find yourself humming along with the singsong melody played by the propane truck.
“Ya, llego Sonigas, el buen gas. Arriving now is Sonigas. The good gas,” the propane jingle plays.

And there’s more. Should you need a sink or toilet, new kitchen chairs, a large sheet of glass or flowers for your garden, be patient! There is nothing too large, too small or too unwieldy not to be loaded onto the back of a truck and hauled past your house.

Our poor unsuspecting visitors! Should I tell them, too, about the soccer matches played in the nearby field? I could share the excitement of Mexico’s national pastime, and tell them about San Pancho’s fine “campo de futbol, soccer field.” which lies below our house. “You can practically see the soccer from our roof,” I say. They can also hear the announcer, the cheering crowd and the celebrations that follow long into the night.

But the charm of the racket can be a tough sell. As much as we love having friends and family visit, we’ve learned that as delightful as the audio portion of San Pancho may be for some, others, our own son Steve included, found the charm wearing thin quickly. After his first night, Steve appeared bleary-eyed at breakfast. He looked stunned.

“How do you stand it?” he asked. “How do you get any sleep? Now I understand why you have a siesta,” he said. “You must be exhausted by noon.”

The deal-breaker for Steve was the parrot next door. The bird was relentless, incessantly squawking the family member’s names, “Miguel, Miguel, Paula, Paula.” The parrot has since moved but our son has yet to schedule another visit.

What we’ve learned from Steve’s experience is to set fresh earplugs and a white noise machine next to the guest bed. And on Friday nights, when the shrill whistle of the sweet potato vendor splits the air, we just smile.

Joaquina: San Pancho's Post Office

Joaquina Avila is San Pancho’s one-woman, roving postal service. She’s been on the job since 1998, connecting San Pancho with the rest of the world by mail. There is no post office building in San Pancho, so wherever Joaquina goes, that’s where the post office is. She was our housekeeper for seven years -- she recently left to run her own fruit stand -- and during that time our home was, in effect, the post office.

Knowing that she worked at our house, town residents who didn’t want to wait for Joaquina to deliver their mail often stopped by to pick it up. Joaquina is totally deaf, and everyone in town knows that. To attract her attention, Mexicans would stand at the gate and wave. If that didn’t work, they shouted her name, knowing that I would respond on her behalf. I would holler “Momentito,” find Joaquina, and tell her a customer was waiting. Joaquina would finish whatever household task she was doing, and then take her time about finding the person’s mail. I got acquainted with a lot of people as we chatted until Joaquina arrived.

Americans sometimes got in trouble with Joaquina because they didn’t understand her rules about mail pick-up. The mail was stored in a blue plastic basket on our porch step -- it looked as though Joaquina had left the basket for people to sort through -- and sometimes they simply took their letters out of the basket. If Joaquina caught them in the act, she chastised them. No one except Joaquina was supposed to touch the mail, although the offenders had no way of knowing this.

Joaquina devised relay systems for getting mail to homes outside of central San Pancho. The mail for Casa Caintuckee, for instance, was dropped off with the sister of the housekeeper, who works in Chalupa’s Restaurant in the village. The sister in turn gave the mail to the housekeeper, who then gave it to the homeowners. The complexity of this arrangement may explain why the owners of Casa Caintuckee never received a bank statement.

Joaquina holds a lot of power and she knows that. If the Telmex bill doesn’t get paid on time, for example, telephone and internet service could be cut off. I have seen mature adults beg her for their Telmex bills.

Although Joaquina says her mail delivery job is stressful, it’s clear to me that she enjoys it. I doubt that she will ever resign or retire. She’s not grooming a successor and she has no assistant -- though I might qualify for the job.

Gail: How We Found San Pancho

For more than twenty years, bus adventures took my husband Bill and me all over Mexico. The day after our flight arrived, we’d go to the bus station to decide where to go next. Joining throngs of travelers' eyes riveted overhead to the bus company logos blazing across the terminal, ETN, Estrella Blanca, Primera Plus, Futura, Maya de Oro, Turista, we stumbled over each other reading the signs. So many buses, so many places to go, we could easily spend hours choosing our destination, checking the schedules, discussing the merits of spending a few more pesos on “primera clase,” first class service.

We traveled, at first, for the sheer joy of exploring Mexico. We never tired of bustling cities with their vast markets and towering cathedrals or of quiet small towns with plazas in the center, and a graceful church nearby, its doors open to the cool inside. In each city and on each stretch of beach we began to ask ourselves, “Is this a place we could live someday, would we retire here, could this be our home?” And the search began.
Disappointments were few. We found Pie de la Cuesta, near busy Acapulco, Isla Mujeres and Playa del Carmen, Cozumel, gems then undiscovered; sleepy Progresso and Puerto Escondido. For several years we flew into Puerto Vallarta and headed south to Melaque and Barra de Navidad finding beachside bungalows where we could afford to stay and take short road trips when we got restless. Plus, we liked Vallarta, especially the old section, where fish tacos were plentiful, hotel rooms were still under $20 a night and there was a brand new bus station just minutes from the airport.

In 1999, we consulted our newest guide book and decided to explore the small beach towns north of Puerto Vallarta. The description of Sayulita was encouraging. Once settled into a small hotel in Puerto Vallarta, we caught the first bus heading north and sat watching the lush foliage along the highway, and glimpses of ocean, its wild waves reflecting the sun.

It seemed, as we checked our watches and the guide book once again, that the trip was already taking far too long. Making my way to the front of the bus, I consulted with the driver.

“Sayulita?” I asked.

“Ya, se lo ha pasado, “he answered. We had missed it.

“No problem”, Bill said as the bus pulled to the side of the road. Lifting our back packs from the overhead rack, he said “we’ll just get off here.”

There was no sign at the highway crossing but the narrow bridge near the entrance to town and long cobblestone street with small houses and shops gathered closely together was a familiar scene. Women swept and watered the dust in front of their houses, street dogs stretched in the morning sun, an occasional car or truck rattled down the street. There are men on horseback. Walking onto the beach, we were amazed to find it nearly deserted, where was everyone? Where were we?

“Breakfast,” Bill announced pointing to the restaurant we’d noted earlier. “Let’s eat and find out where we are.”

Only a handful of tables were occupied. When we placed our order, I asked the name of the town.
“San Francisco,” the waitress replied adding in Spanish, “Everyone here calls it San Pancho.”

We pulled out our trusty guidebooks but were quickly told by a voice from a table in the corner, “You aren’t going to find this place in that book.” We looked over.

“You just found the most beautiful town in Mexico,” he continued coming over to our table. Towering over us, he grinned and extended his hand, “Dar Peters,” he said, “Welcome to San Pancho.”

It’s been nearly ten years since we first wandered down the streets of San Pancho. Through the long friendship with Dar, we found and bought land and, with him built the house in which we now spend our winters. Dar died two years ago but he is still a legend in San Pancho. The houses he built are distinctive and unique. We’re proud to own one.

Channing: How We Found San Pancho

San Carlos, Sonora, was my introduction to living in Mexico. Situated on the Sea of Cortez, on mainland Mexico, the tiny town casts a lure: sport fishing, boating, scuba diving. My husband and I loved the slow pace, opportunity to practice Spanish, the proximity to Guaymas, a working town that does not inveigle tourism. In 2002 we invested in San Carlos; we bought a condominium unit on the beach.

It was paradise. Dolphins frolicked and pelicans preened a seashell’s throw from our patio. Each sunrise and sunset broke the gasp-o-meter. But a burgeoning band of developers thought it paradise as well. By our third winter in San Carlos the view had changed: new hotels and condos designed for North American retirees began to crawl along the beach. Gated communities sprawled beyond the town into Sonoran desert. Mid-price homes resembled dandelions gone to seed.

We watched, with growing dismay, San Carlos morph into a Tucson bedroom community. Time to move on, we told ourselves. Look for a more authentic Mexican experience. In March 2005 we hit the road. Sonora, Sinaloa, Nayarit. On day four we stumbled into Sayulita, a beach town less than an hour north of Puerto Vallarta.
Sayulita was charm personified: cobblestone streets, town square flanked by a quaint church, gazebo, artisans dressed in native costume. The streets thrummed with chatter. We were enthralled.
For two days we peered at posters plastered in local real estate windows. Homes were enticing. But prices were not. For $300,000 U.S. we could buy a little fixer-upper a mile from the beach. For $500,000 U.S. the fixer-upper might have a peek-a-view.
Sayulita was beyond budget.

Disappointed, we decided to move on. Loath to leave, I took a last look around: street carts heaped with fruit, kiosks ajumble with CDs, blenders, well-worn tools. A fish market, a hole-in-the-wall grocery, an ice cream shop. I watched a green and white bus crank open its doors, spew passengers dusty from their ride.
A North American woman disembarked, approached.
"Excuse me," she said, "do you have the time?"
A dialogue ensued. She was selling her home in Sayulita, had purchased another in Puerto Vallarta, a better locale for a middle-age single woman. I mentioned this part of Mexico might be too expensive for a second home. She said not necessarily. "Americans are buying and building in San Pancho now. You might want to take a look. Just a few miles north of here." She pointed, made sure I understood the direction. "It’s actually a much nicer village," she said. "Especially for retirees." She shrugged. "Sayulita is not as nice as it used to be."
Next day we drove three miles north to the pueblo of San Pancho. Crossed a cobblestone bridge, braked for a horse and rider, moved over to accommodate a produce cart. We liked the simplicity of this village, life for locals.

"Let’s talk with a real estate agent," I said. "Just see what’s happening here. No commitment." My husband was willing to assuage my curiosity.
The inventory was low, explained the real estate agent. We leafed through his book of photos. Two houses looked okay, but…but what was this? Lush foliage, plunge pool, four palapas, a terraced garden that led to an outdoor living room.

"I would like to see this," I said, stabbing the photo. I loved the look of the place.
"It’s a restaurant," he said.
"Could we live in it?"
"Not a problem. There’s a kitchen, of course, one bedroom, one bathroom."
We toured the property. Weighed the pros, overlooked the cons. Price was right. Might need a little work.
Dear Reader, we bought it.

It has been three winters since we made the move to San Pancho. The restaurant required more work than anticipated to make it a comfortable home. We continue to repair, upgrade and install basic amenities. But the sweat has sweet reward: bougainvillea, lilies, coconut palms, bird-of-paradise, a wild and wonderful tropicana Henri Rouseau might only imagine.

In addition to its visual charm, our restaurant-cum-winter retreat has proved an oasis. It is several degrees cooler than the street above us; palo santo, banana trees, jungle vines shelter us from mid-day heat. A low concrete entry wall muffles sound. But we keep the rustic wooden gate propped open. The street is alive; we don’t want to miss the cacophony: vendors, trucks in death rattle, neighbors about their daily business.
At least once a week someone enters the gate, calls out, "Hola? Are you open today?" The restaurant had a good reputation. Visitors come to dine. With regret I tell them this is now a home. A home in which we intend to stay.

Carolyn: How We Found San Pancho

The San Pancho Writers In My Living Room

If it hadn’t been so cold in the winter of 1995, we wouldn’t have bought our house in San Pancho. That year my husband Jonathan and I flew down from frigid New Mexico to meet my sister and brother-in-law in Puerto Vallarta. Our 19 year old daughter, Thea, on her Christmas vacation from college, joined us. My sister and her husband picked us up at the airport in their Mercury Grand Marquis and Jonathan, Thea and I sank into the plush of the enormous back seat for ten days of touring.

My sister and her husband were trying to convince us to join them in buying a vacation house in Mexico, preferably something in the interior, something colonial. They liked the Chapala area with its large foreign community and reportedly-perfect year-round climate. Neither family had much money; we set our upper expenditure at $7,000, that is, $3,500 each. Not unreasonable in those days for shopping in Mexico, it was a lark we could afford, and Mexico was an old friend.

Couples sometimes occupy the poles of fiscal responsibility. Jonathan and I, however, are equally impulsive, equally cautious, equally foolish, equally sensible when it comes to spending money. On this occasion we found ourselves, out of the blue, equally ready to have a Mexico home, though, in our early fifties and deep in our careers, we couldn’t foresee getting much use from it.

When we got off the plane in Puerto Vallarta the air had been sweet and warm, but as we climbed through the coast range it got colder and colder. The winter we had fled was flowing down into central Mexico between the great eastern and western mountain ranges. Nopal cactus were frozen black and snow flurries shocked Guadalajara. Our wardrobes and hotels were caught off-guard. In Chapala we trooped down to the front desk to beg for blankets and were turned away to huddle for a long night under thin sheets and bedspreads.

My sister and brother-in-law already had a house for us in mind. They had seen it the year before in a village just across the hills north of Lake Chapala. The Se Vende sign was still there. Helpful neighbors said the owner lived in another town but found the key for us—eight inches of hand-forged iron. There was a large house and garden surrounded by a wall with the brightly-tiled dome of the church visible over it. By the time we emerged, we were all seriously interested. The neighbors waited in the street, eager to impart information, which they mostly didn’t have. Our translator, Jonathan, asked if they knew the cost. From the hubbub arose, “Seventy thousand pesos! Seven hundred thousand! Old pesos! New pesos!” The house could have been perfection at $7,000 or be well beyond or budget at $70,000. Wait! How could we talk with the owner? She was living in the remote town of Mascota. A telephone? No. How do you get there? They looked at the Grand Marquis and said we couldn’t get there in that.

Impulsivity stymied and colonial be damned—one more night of a cold that reminded us too much of New Mexico and we fled back to the warmth of the coast. While watching the sunset in Barra de Navidad, we decided to do something special for Thea. Her friend, whose mom, Connie, was our friend, was staying somewhere up the coast in the village of San Pancho. Connie had bought a third of a house, sight unseen, and her daughter was down for a first visit. The village wasn’t marked on our maps or mentioned in our guide books but we knew it was north of Puerto Vallarta and in a few days we set off to find it. Finally, at the northern end of the Bay of Banderas, we were successful in getting directions—about half an hour further. Turning inland from the bay, the road entered a tunnel of huge trees meeting overhead. Here and there the vista opened to steep hillsides with palms, lianas, trees with red, twisted trunks or with points of colored bloom, a Tarzan jungle, a decorator jungle. Then the tiny, clean and colorful village. The main street led to a perfect beach with rocks and cliffs on either end. The surf was spectacular.

“Well, Connie landed on her feet,” I said, already infatuated.

Thea’s friend proved easy to find and we left the two of them to hang out at the beach together. While my brother-in-law was maneuvering the Grand Marquis around in the little street, we blocked an ice cream truck blasting its tinkling music and Jonathan got out to buy me a cone. We could see him in animated, laughing discussion with the beautiful woman selling the ice cream. Their conviviality went on a lot longer than appeared necessary and I was prepared to tease him with some feigned jealousy, but when he returned I was appeased with the information that she had some property for sale. We thought it would be in San Pancho but found ourselves following a speeding ice cream truck for twenty minutes up the coast.

She showed us two places, one of them her own home. An old uncle was making ice cream in the garage and children with exotic names such as Ingrid, Vladimir and Jefferson tumbled about, hung on her and climbed into her lap. She told us that she and her husband had produced two and adopted four. She was a nurse and he an engineer but salaries in Mexico made selling ice cream a better option for supporting a large family and was enabling them, little by little, to build a hotel. Neither house tempted us, unfortunately, but we couldn’t imagine a nicer person to give our money to.

Back in sweet little San Pancho we ate lunch at the restaurant owned by a gringo with a Mexican wife. There was a notice of a house for sale at $7,850. On the lot, we found a two-room brick hovel. It had rained the day before and the roof was still dripping into buckets—the only running water in the house. There was a rudimentary bathroom outside and a tank of water with attached washstand for dishes and clothes. The neighbor’s pig had a nice wallow in the back. The yard was large, however, and had beautiful coconut palms and other mature trees of unknown variety. The coconut palms did it. That day Jonathan and I, in our equally impulsive mode, decided we wanted to buy it.

But how? There is a prohibition in Mexico against foreigners owning property within 50 kilometers of the coast. This house was about a kilometer from the beach. Back at the restaurant, the owner told us that we could use a presta nombre, a Mexican national who “lent” his ”name” to buy the property for the foreigner. The scheme had been invented by the great landowners to reconstitute their holdings, de facto, after the haciendas had been broken up following the revolution. We asked how we could trust someone to own our property.

“These people are honest,” he said. “It’s paradise. Enjoy it.”

We liked this guy. We liked the warmth, the bougainvillea, the huge waves crashing on the beach, the tidy streets. We never stopped to think if there was anyone who spoke English besides him. Anyway, I liked to mouth the notion that trying to learn a foreign language in one’s “certain age” would keep the mind agile. But who could we trust to own our property? We thought immediately of the ice cream lady with her house full of love and adopted children.

She had left us with her phone number; Jonathan called and asked if we could visit. That night we met her handsome and charming husband and more children.

Stating the point of the discussion is literally the last thing you want to do in a Mexican conversation, so only after the exchange of family histories, beliefs about the meaning of life, and the drinking of multiple vinitos (tequila and Squirt), did Jonathan introduce the presta nombre plan. Likely they had expected that we wanted to buy one of their properties and were clearly surprised when Jonathan made our proposal. The husband found his voice. They were humbled. They were honored beyond words. That we would trust them! How they would value the nobility of our gesture! No less than a pact of North American and Mexican friendship. It went on in that vein for a good while. We had found a presta nombre.

My sister and brother-in law didn’t want the house or the ownership arrangements and, more and more impulsive, we decided to go it alone. No more than our stated intent to buy had been accomplished by the end of the trip, and we returned home with the number of San Pancho’s single phone and a promise of help from the restaurant owner. Each time we called, someone had to run down the street to the restaurant to look for him. Occasionally, he made it to the phone and we learned of the progress of the sale. The price rose to $10,000. A counter offers apparently weren’t done. Oh, all right, $10,000. Clearly, we were hooked.

In a couple of months the sale was ready. We wired the money. Jonathan flew down. Not one second thought had surfaced. We had spent the time deep in a fantasy of building, remodeling, planting. I was studying Architectural Digest’s tropical vacation homes and filling a notebook with diagrams.

“What are you doing here?” the restaurant owner said when he saw Jonathan. “This has nothing to do with you.” So Jonathan hid around the corner while our presta nombre went into the office of a lawyer and bought herself a nice little lot with all our money.

In a few years the designation of property in San Pancho had changed so that we could use the proper method for coastal-dwelling foreigners to hold their land—the bank trust. Instead of a Mexican citizen owning the property, a bank would, and, for a yearly fee, guarantee possession, right of sale, and inheritance. Actually, “trust” doesn’t enter into it. Now we own our house in this manner too, but our Mexican adventure began on a different note. We leapt before we looked, we risked on intuition, we trusted, and all came out well.

Little by little we did build and remodel. We planted and painted bright colors. We tiled and decorated. We came for two weeks a year, then for two months, than for six. For several years Jonathan worked half a year in Mexico and flew back every six weeks to convince his company that he valued his job. Three years ago we sat gazing into our garden and decided to move entirely to San Pancho. In months we had sold our house in New Mexico where we had lived for thirty-six years, retired, and chosen one more adventure—a Mexican life.

Ellen: How We Found San Pancho

San Pancho's beach

After a year of sailing our boat across the Pacific, husband Marsh and I had had enough. The live-aboard life was not for us. But what to do next? We’d sold our house in New England and put our stuff in storage. Best to hit the road and hunt for a hometown, we figured, somewhere away from ice and snow. We came up with a travel plan. We would drive up and down the U.S. and Mexican coastlines in our pickup, stopping in towns we heard were interesting or that caught our eye. It would be an open ended trip; we would stop when it no longer felt like fun. About four to six months would do it, we thought.

We came up with a rating system for the towns we’d visit. We listed all the must-have’s and weighted the factors, assigning them points. A university rated high (intellectual stimulation). So did a house price we could afford and a teaching job opportunity for me. We’d add up the points and give the top scorer a trial run.

First to be rated was Wilmington, North Carolina, last was Seattle, Washington. In the six months between them, we looked at 24 places, including eight in Mexico. Each was vetted in the same way: we visited a Realtor, explained the rating system, and asked to see what the town had to offer. A good Realtor is also a good tour guide---after a day or two, we usually could do the math and move on.

At the end of six months, tired of traveling, we had three top contenders, all in the U.S.: Savannah, Georgia; Beaufort, South Carolina; and San Luis Obispo, California. We made our decision. We decided to ignore the scores and the winners. Instead we picked a tiny town in Mexico that hadn’t even made it into the Top Ten.

Bucerias, Nayarit, then population 6,000, got the nod. On the Bay of Banderas and ten miles north of Puerto Vallarta, its cobble stoned streets and brilliant rosa Mexicano bougainvilleas spilling over garden walls hit a nerve in both of us. We hadn’t even thought to rate raw natural beauty during our search for a new hometown. Now it turned out to be the determining factor. Never mind that most of the small shops could have used a coat of paint, that leaking pipes poured water down every other street, and that dogs left a trail from the garbage bags they tore into . The long white sand beach and the sound of the gentle surf made us overlook all that. We called the scruffiness “local color.”

Within weeks of arrival, we bought a lot and broke ground on a new house. We named it “Quinta Elena,” after the lady of the house, and its bedrooms were filled from November to May with family and friends. The climate and colors, the people and palms: Everything that resonated with us dazzled them, too.

As we explored the area, we found smaller towns we liked even better. So when a three-story condo building went in next door, and new neighbors peered down from their porches at us in our pool, we used them as an excuse to buy more land, sell the house, and build again. This time we found a spectacular hilltop in sweet little San Pancho, half an hour up the coast. A year later, I sat on the porch of Quinta Elena II, savoring the new view of the Pacific and thanking my lucky stars for leading me to this place on the planet.

Nancy: How We Found San Pancho

Los Arcos Restaurant, San Pancho, 1999

The decision that eventually led us to San Pancho started with a “fly-and-buy” vacation to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico in 1993. That’s what sales people in resort timeshares call a low-priced stay that includes airfare. Neither my husband Skip nor I had been to Puerto Vallarta, and it seemed like a good choice. The package was cheap, the weather was warm, and we wanted a break from New England slush and snow.

The chemistry between Mexico and us was instant. Our fantasy of a tropical paradise had come to life. Swaying palms, manicured gardens, vistas of the ocean, and -- the perfect touch -- peacocks strolling the grounds. Both of us were fascinated by the swim-up bar, the first we’d ever seen. “How decadent!” I thought. “How fabulous!” Skip made the practical observation, “If a guy falls off the barstool, he won’t get hurt.”

Seduced by the carefully constructed setting, we were perfect targets for the timeshare sales pitch. No lists of pros and cons for us. No analysis of whether it made financial sense. On the day after our arrival we bought a wildly over-priced 25-year timeshare contract.

Our week at the timeshare was a respite for five years from boring jobs and bad weather. We knew Spanish words for food and money – that was it – and we felt comfortable in the resort’s protected, bilingual setting. The bus ride into downtown Puerto Vallarta was as close as we got to everyday life in Mexico. To us that trip was high adventure: a rickety school bus repainted vibrant blue, raucous music, ball fringe and images of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the windshield, a mariachi singing for tips. This sure beat gloomy New Haven, Connecticut in February!

By the sixth year the resort’s pre-packaged Mexican setting seemed less alluring. We had learned more Spanish and we were less timid. “Next year let’s find a place to stay in the real Mexico,” we said. We didn’t know what we meant by that phrase, but it had a ring to it, even a sense of superiority. “We won’t just lounge by the pool like those other gringos. We’ll have a more authentic experience.” And so we went looking, stopping at towns on the route from PuertoVallarta to the north.

The first town was too close to the highway and had a commercial feel. A traveling circus had set up on the main street in the next town, and the place was chaotic. But San Pancho was immediately appealing. Quiet, small, right on the beach. Our first impression was that the large number of dogs napping peacefully on the main street looked healthy. As dog lovers, we took that to be a good sign. We made inquiries about rentals, and the next February we spent our vacation week at a house in the village.

San Pancho was a new world to our ears and eyes. As lifelong city-dwellers, Skip and I had never heard roosters crow. We discovered that they really say “cock-a-doodle-do,” and that they say it all the time, not just at dawn. Daily life was accompanied by music. Ranchera tunes from construction sites, karaoke from the neighbor’s yard, and hymns from the church all poured through our windows. We marveled at the long-tailed magpie jays swooping through the palms and we counted geckos clustered around the porch light at night.

The local people were easy-going and friendly. Even if we didn’t know them, they greeted us on the street. They found no fault with our halting Spanish and appreciated any attempt to have a conversation. Life here had a simpler, communal quality. We felt at ease. If we had been infatuated with Mexico at the timeshare, we were falling in love now.

We ate many meals at Los Arcos, a restaurant owned by an American, Dar Peters, and his Mexican wife Angela. Dar had been living and building houses in San Pancho for 20 years. The town’s unofficial Mayor, he was the “go-to” guy for both gringos and Mexicans in the village. We’d seen his houses, we liked his design style, and we instinctively trusted him. If we were thinking of buying land and building a house, we should do it soon, Dar said, because prices would only increase. A year and a half after that conversation, we owned a house that Dar had built for us in the middle of San Pancho.

When I am asked, “How did you decide to live in San Pancho?” I give the long answer, if I think people will listen. To me it’s like the story of how a relationship progresses from a first date to marriage. “It started with a ‘fly-and-buy’ vacation to Puerto Vallarta,” I say, “and it happened step by step.”

Channing Enders

For more than 25 years I had the pleasure and great good fortune of writing for newspapers and non-profit and corporate magazines; I also got to sit behind the editor’s desk at a Seattle suburb weekly newspaper. For a couple of years I taught creative writing (all writing is creative, isn’t it?) at a local community college.
As seasoned reporters say (but I’m not that old!), ink runs in my veins. And I couldn’t cap it. In my retirement I continue to write. My husband reads the first draft, provides historical perspective: he shared these stories with me. My fellow San Pancho writers remind me grammar is a good thing. I heed their advice. Most of the time.
Born in the stateside San Francisco, raised in Seattle, I divide my time between homes in San Pancho, Nayarit, and Washington state. In addition to my husband, my family includes five children, three grandchildren, one cat. The latter rules the roost, both homes.

Ellen Greene

I grew up in a small Wisconsin town and went to Catholic schools for twelve years before breaking out at UW-Madison, a.k.a. “hotbed of God-less Communism.” No turning back after that. I moved to Costa Rica, married, had a couple of Costa Rican babies, then returned to live around the United States (Colorado, New Mexico, Massachusetts, California), in China(Shanghai), on a sailboat, and now close to Puerto Vallarta on Mexico’s Pacific coast. During my salaried years, I worked as an English teacher, a job skills trainer, and a human resources manager. Now I am a writer, after selling some articles and a book.

Nancy Brown

Since 2001 my husband and I have led two lives. We spend fall and winter in San Pancho and the rest of the year near New Haven, Connecticut. The Pacific coast of Mexico during the long New England winter, and a culturally-rich little city near our families in the spring and summer -- it sounds like a great arrangement, and it is. The only drawback is that when I’m in one place, I’m always missing someone in the other place.
During 18 years of community relations work for alcohol and drug treatment centers, I wrote innumerable promotional brochures, marketing plans, and newsletters. I don’t know if anyone ever got clean and sober because of my efforts, but I like to think so. Now I write for the fun of it. I’ve been lucky to be part of San Pancho Writers, a group of smart, funny women in my Mexican hometown who like to write, too.

Gail Mitchell

I was born and raised in Chicago. I became literate in spite of Mrs. Jackson who made us diagram sentences but never taught us punctuation. Undaunted, I wrote short stories on our trusty Royal typewriter and sent them off to magazines whose editors suggested I resubmit them when I grew up. Instead, I became a teacher, got married and had three sons.

I spent years working in non-profit organizations providing healthcare and cancer support which warmed my heart, but not the rest of me, during the long, cold winters. When our sons heard “go west,” they did, and we pursued our dream to live in Mexico.

For the past two years, my husband Bill and I have split our time between San Pancho, Chicago and California. Now, I’m lucky enough to have friends who love to write and who know where to put the commas.